I'm not much in to resolutions...why choose some arbitrary day of the year to start doing something good? If it's good or is something that needs to happen, start doing it today - like right now.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the first phase of a remodeling project; that initial step that that gets you from the house you have now to the house you've always wanted.

We call this first phase of the project, where we see what is possible in your home, the PA phase. PA stands for Preliminary Agreement, and it basically means that you are interested in learning more about what can be done at your house, and we are interested in helping you through that process. In this step:

we measure the space that is going to be remodeled, as well as adjacent spaces. In some cases, we measure your entire house if that is what the new work calls for

we take those measurements back to the office and draft the existing plans of your house.

now that I have some existing plans to work from, I'll take your desired scope of work (ie, kitchen, bathroom, addition, etc) along with any list of priorities or anecdotal requests and start putting together some designs. I will typically come up with 3 different schemes. Scheme 1 will always be exactly what you asked for. Scheme 2 will incorporate what I think you might need or like, even if you didn't specifically ask for it (this is where being a good listener pays off). Scheme 3 will show you the full potential of what is possible in your home. This is where I hear, "wait...you can make this house look like that?" Yes. Yes I can.

once I have your 3 schemes designed, I will put together a price range for each...because what good are pretty pictures if you don't know how much they cost? This range will usually be around 25%, so something like $100-$125K. The reason for the 25% swing is that there are still many decisions left to make...are we using porcelain tile or marble, level 1 granite or quartz, wood or fiber cement siding, asphalt shingles or slate? Phase 2 is where we nail down all of those decisions.

once I have some designs I think you'll love and a price range for each, I'll invite you back to the office and walk you through the options. More often than not, once a client sees what is possible, Schemes 2 and 3 get tweaked and revised, and I create Scheme 4, which encompasses everything that client originally wanted as well as everything she never knew she wanted.

Here are some examples of the PA process from an addition/kitchen remodel I designed:

The existing drawing of the section of the house that would be affected

Scheme 1 was exactly what the client asked for...a kitchen that was more functional and used the existing window and door to the deck as the opening to the new sun room

What I heard was a need/desire for a kitchen that was more open to adjacent spaces and incorporated space for friends since the client enjoyed entertaining.

Scheme 3 also incorporated the open/entertaining space

After seeing the 3 schemes, the client quickly realized the open/entertaining option was the way to go. We took the openness of schemes 2 and 3, the orientation of scheme 2, and the dual islands of scheme 3 to come up with final plan - Scheme 4.

A picture of the finished kitchen...completely open to the existing dining room and new sun room.

We'll dive into the subsequent steps in a remodeling project in later posts to learn how we got from Scheme 4 to the finished product. But first things first, don't resolve to make your house into your dream home some distant time in the future. There is no better time than right now. The PA is a fun, easy, risk free process.